But the state's death penalty stays on the table, voters decided, even as executions remain stalled by ongoing legal battles in the courts.

Proposition 36 - an easing of the three-strikes law - was supported by an overwhelming 68.6 percent of voters.

Under the new provisions, a felon with two previous strikes is hit with a third strike only when the third offense is a serious or violent crime; when any of the strikes are considered a "super strike," including murder, rape and child molestation; or when the third offense is identified as an exception to the nonserious and nonviolent list of specific felonies, such as a qualifying statutory rape charge, San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau said.

Prisoners whose third strike would have been lowered by the amendment can now petition for new sentences.

But Himelblau said the new conditions complicate the process of charging criminals even further and increase the possibility for appeals.

"It's just one of those things where you're going to have to figure out what they're actually facing, so you're going to need, like, a little worksheet," Himelblau said. "There also might be some clerical headaches."

Another potential problem prosecutors foresee is that the language used in the legislation might conflict with language commonly used in litigation. The result might be more issues raised on appeal over the law's intent by sometime next year.

"It eats up a lot of resources," Himelblau said. "There's always funky writing in these laws, and they always cause some headaches.

"I mean nitpicky, little things."

California expects about 2,800 inmates who were sentenced under the old three-strikes law will file petitions to receive shorter sentences.

Local judges will have jurisdiction in deciding who should be resentenced, but district attorneys may choose to show that the inmate should stay locked up if that person continues to be a danger to society, Himelblau said.

California's law was viewed as the toughest in the 24 states that have a three-strikes laws. It was the only state to impose 25-years-to-life sentences on a third strike for a nonserious or nonviolent felony, such as shoplifting.

County Public Defender Peter Fox said the amended law provides fairer sentences and applies to about 34 prisoners from San Joaquin County already serving long terms for nonviolent crimes.

"It isn't fair to send someone to prison for a nonserious, nonviolent offence," he said.

The Public Defender's Office challenge is locating former clients who may meet the criteria for reduced sentences.

"The attorneys who've been around for 20 years, they remember these people," Fox said. "So we've started to list the names. Some of the clients have written us letters."

Odds are, Fox said, some of the inmates looking to petition were not represented by the Public Defender's Office at trial. Some will write their own request for a hearing, and it will likely end up in Fox's office anyway.

"It's not that much work, because it's not that many people," Fox said.

San Joaquin County prosecutors have tended to offer deals to third-strike offenders with nonviolent, nonserious offenses, and the local court also has supported the idea of loosening the penalties on those convictions.

"The San Joaquin County court has evolved to recognize that it's an injustice to send people to life for a nonserious, nonviolent crime," Fox said.

Fox is, however, disappointed the measure to repeal the state's death penalty failed at the ballot.

Proposition 34 would have converted the death sentences of the 727 death row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but on Tuesday, it was shot down 52.8 percent to 47.8 percent. Proponents had argued that halting executions would save California millions of dollars.

"The death penalty is broken anyway," Fox said.

California has executed only 13 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, mainly because it takes decades for a death row inmate to exhaust his or her appeals.

Adding to that, executions have been stalled by ongoing litigation since Stockton's Michael Morales, convicted of murder and rape, challenged the state's three-cocktail lethal injection method seven years ago.

And, Fox said, there is a shortage of appellate lawyers who take these types of appeals. "They can't pay people enough to do it," he said.

Himelblau said prosecutors never thought the bill would pass.

"It never polled in a way where the death penalty looked like it was getting overturned," he said.

Yet he agrees with Fox that the death penalty system isn't working.

"We're executing less than one person a year since it started," Himelblau said. "We have appeals still sitting in the Ninth Circuit (Court of Appeals) 25 years after the offense or more.

"If we were to execute a person a day," he added, "it would take us two years (to clear)."